I ❤️ Nancy Pelosi

[stevenkesslar]

She has been one of the best political leaders of my lifetime.  Her values and determination are awesome.  I'll miss you, Nancy.  The Democrats will too.

Books have been and will be written about her.  But these are a few paragraphs that get to the heart of it.

Democrats can’t fill the Nancy Pelosi void

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Pelosi "muscled Obamacare through and knew it would cost Dems politically. And it did. They lost the House. But she was clear-eyed that the short-term cost was worth the long-term gain — Republicans would never be able to undo it, and they would have permanently restructured the economy. And she was right.” In sum, she was “just pure mission focus and ruthless execution”.

 

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This is the mystery and the genius of Nancy Pelosi. It recalls a question the former speaker reportedly levelled at Rahm Emanuel during the Obamacare battle: “Does the President not understand the way this game works? He wants to get it done and be beloved, and you can’t have both — which does he want?”

 

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It was never unclear where Pelosi landed on that question. In time, though, Democrats may actually grant her both: getting it done and being revered.

Call me liberal.  But to me, she is both amazingly effective, and beloved. 💕

[Pete1111]

She stuck to her values and communicated them well.  

[RockyRoadTravel]

Ripping up that hateful speech of the Incompetent-in-Chief was a master class of non-violent political protest. 

[RockyRoadTravel]

On 11/6/2025 at 8:06 PM, stevenkesslar said:

She has been one of the best political leaders of my lifetime.  Her values and determination are awesome.  I'll miss you, Nancy.  The Democrats will too.

Books have been and will be written about her.  But these are a few paragraphs that get to the heart of it.

Democrats can’t fill the Nancy Pelosi void

 

 

Call me liberal.  But to me, she is both amazingly effective, and beloved. 💕

I hope she's working on an autobiography. It'd be required reading for anyone interested in American politics, and how to work within a system of power. It'd be so interesting, I expect that she'd name names, and I want to know why a public option never made it into the Affordable Care Act. 

[stevenkesslar]

11 hours ago, RockyRoadTravel said:

I hope she's working on an autobiography. It'd be required reading for anyone interested in American politics, and how to work within a system of power. It'd be so interesting, I expect that she'd name names, and I want to know why a public option never made it into the Affordable Care Act. 

I'll take it in a different (rambling) direction and bring Chuck Schumer along for the ride.

We could have and perhaps should have had a "the torch has passed" moment around 2023 or so.  Smart pundits were thinking there could be a fight to replace Pelosi.  And certainly there would be a big fight for the Democratic POTUS nomination.  Pelosi, no surprise, organized quiet institutional change among insider institutionalists like Jeffries.  Biden just hung on.  

Oh well.

In hindsight, it's easy to argue that too many old people holding on to power for too long cost Democrats the election in 2024. 

The irony is that Trump is hardly young and fresh.  And electing a Black Asian American woman POTUS would have been a fresh idea.  Nevertheless, I say this for two reasons.  A lot of Zoomers had a deep distaste for Biden that rubbed off on Harris.  And many of these newer folks, even if they are not young, are the vanguard for a Sandernista/AOC/Mamdani style economic populism on the left.  Less ICE, more child tax credits and ACA subsidies.

We'll never know what would have happened if the torch had passed.  But we do know it would have matched Trump's right-wing economic populism with some kind of left-wing economic populism that at least knew what it stood for.  Our version of Mexico's AMLO.  My simple mind keeps thing anything good Hecho en Mexico can work here.

It seems clear this is the direction the Democratic Party is going.  And wants to go.  The action is in the reaction.  After eight years of Trump "fight like hell" will be in the Democratic DNA in 2028.  Just like eight years of Obama led the GOP to Trump.  Mamdani is a big canary in a big apple mine.  Slaughtered the metaphor.  But you know what I mean.

So my point is that this moment right now may be as close as we get to a "the torch has passed" moment.  Pelosi is exiting.  And there was just a long and good article in Politico about how Schumer is fading, perhaps not by choice.  There is speculation that he may not even run again.  And if he does AOC may kick his ass.  The days when Schumer was the young dynamo who took out two decades of Al D'Amato seem to have ended.   Long ago.

Pelosi was a fighter, for sure.  But she was as much of an institutionalist as you can get.  As is Schumer.  As was Biden.  As was Harris.  Although she was in the junior leagues and couldn't quite make the step up.

This does not mean that it is inevitable that Democrats will nominate a died in the wool economic populist in 2028.  But I do think whoever we do nominate will run as a fighter.  And they will have to at least embrace economic populism. 

[RockyRoadTravel]

On 11/12/2025 at 9:06 PM, stevenkesslar said:

I'll take it in a different (rambling) direction and bring Chuck Schumer along for the ride.

We could have and perhaps should have had a "the torch has passed" moment around 2023 or so.  Smart pundits were thinking there could be a fight to replace Pelosi.  And certainly there would be a big fight for the Democratic POTUS nomination.  Pelosi, no surprise, organized quiet institutional change among insider institutionalists like Jeffries.  Biden just hung on.  

Oh well.

In hindsight, it's easy to argue that too many old people holding on to power for too long cost Democrats the election in 2024. 

The irony is that Trump is hardly young and fresh.  And electing a Black Asian American woman POTUS would have been a fresh idea.  Nevertheless, I say this for two reasons.  A lot of Zoomers had a deep distaste for Biden that rubbed off on Harris.  And many of these newer folks, even if they are not young, are the vanguard for a Sandernista/AOC/Mamdani style economic populism on the left.  Less ICE, more child tax credits and ACA subsidies.

We'll never know what would have happened if the torch had passed.  But we do know it would have matched Trump's right-wing economic populism with some kind of left-wing economic populism that at least knew what it stood for.  Our version of Mexico's AMLO.  My simple mind keeps thing anything good Hecho en Mexico can work here.

It seems clear this is the direction the Democratic Party is going.  And wants to go.  The action is in the reaction.  After eight years of Trump "fight like hell" will be in the Democratic DNA in 2028.  Just like eight years of Obama led the GOP to Trump.  Mamdani is a big canary in a big apple mine.  Slaughtered the metaphor.  But you know what I mean.

So my point is that this moment right now may be as close as we get to a "the torch has passed" moment.  Pelosi is exiting.  And there was just a long and good article in Politico about how Schumer is fading, perhaps not by choice.  There is speculation that he may not even run again.  And if he does AOC may kick his ass.  The days when Schumer was the young dynamo who took out two decades of Al D'Amato seem to have ended.   Long ago.

Pelosi was a fighter, for sure.  But she was as much of an institutionalist as you can get.  As is Schumer.  As was Biden.  As was Harris.  Although she was in the junior leagues and couldn't quite make the step up.

This does not mean that it is inevitable that Democrats will nominate a died in the wool economic populist in 2028.  But I do think whoever we do nominate will run as a fighter.  And they will have to at least embrace economic populism. 

I just finished Pelosi's 2024 book, The Art of Power.  For people who follow politics it provides a survey of events of American politics over the last 40 years. I'm not too sure if it'd have much of an audience outside of the politically committed (unlike the Obama's various books).

Pelosi emphasizes HIV/AIDS as a reason for her first entering into electoral politics in late 80's.  Then there are sections on the 9/11 Commission, passing the ACA and the attempted MAGA coup in 2021. It's really in the last section of the book dealing with the assault on American democracy on January 6th that the book comes alive. Maybe it's more recent, maybe it's the fact that her daughter's life was in danger as well that day while in the Capital.

She talks about various Republican elected officials that day, from the courage of Mike Pence refusing to leave the Capitol and his commitment to the peaceful transfer of power, Mitch McConnell's initial condemnations of the Incompetent-in-Chief while later refusing to consider impeachment, Steve Scalise's involvement in calls to the President which he later denied were ever made, and she has a special place in her heart for Kevin McCarthy's portrait in cowardice whining there was nothing he could do at all that day.  

[RockyRoadTravel]

On 11/12/2025 at 9:06 PM, stevenkesslar said:

 Mamdani is a big canary in a big apple mine. 

Get a room

[Suckrates]

On 11/13/2025 at 12:06 AM, stevenkesslar said:

  Mamdani is a big canary in a big apple mine. 

 

YES, I often find myself fantasizing about how BIG Mamdani really is........😍